Falun Gong Practitioner Now Living in Sweden Recounts April 25, 1999

April 28, 2009 | By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Sweden

(Clearwisdom.net) It is again April 25. Ten years ago on this day, over
10,000 Falun Gong practitioners went to the Office of Appeals of the State
Council in Beijing to peacefully ask the Chinese government to release dozens of
practitioners arrested in Tianjin, to grant Falun Gong practitioners a legal
environment to practice, and to allow the publication of Falun Gong books.
Then-Premier Zhu Rongji met with representatives of the Falun Gong practitioners
and reached a preliminary agreement. This is known as the April 25th
Peaceful Appeal.

Throughout the incident, Falun Gong practitioners fully demonstrated the
honesty, fearlessness, peacefulness, and rationality of cultivators of
Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. They captured the attention of the whole world.

Li Zhihe is a practitioner who participated in the April 25th
appeal. Li currently lives in Sweden. On the ten-year anniversary of the event,
he recounted his experience during an interview with Clearwisdom reporters. The
following is a summary of his recollections.

I still remember vividly what happened on April 25, 1999. I arrived at the
State Council's Office of Appeals before 6 a.m. and left after 9 p.m. I stood
there for the whole day. I was practicing my right to appeal, a right granted to
citizens by the Chinese Constitution.

Why I went to the Office of Appeals

I should start with how I became a Falun Gong practitioner. I joined the army
at the age of 18. I worked on the railroads. I spent seven years in a very harsh
environment. I was young at the time, and did not think much of it. As I entered
middle age, many physical problems caught up with me. The most obvious problems
were lower back pains, numb limbs, and early symptoms of nerve issues. The
doctors said if I didn't take good care of myself, I could become completely
paralyzed. My illness caused me a lot of hardship in my life and work. Whenever
I heard of a good doctor, regardless of location or cost, I would go and seek
him or her out.

In October 1997, I began practicing Falun Gong thanks to a friend's
introduction. At first, I just wanted to try it out. Within two weeks, my
chronic illnesses all disappeared. I know another Falun Gong practitioner named
Xie Xiufen. She was paralyzed for 16 years due to a failed medical procedure.
Within one year of practicing Falun Gong, she was able to stand up and live like
a normal person.

I grew up under China's communist regime and was an atheist. However, my
personal experience and that of those around me changed my view. This wonderful
practice not only made me healthier but also made my marriage better.

I was there to appeal, not to "besiege" the government compound

At our local practice site, I learned that dozens of Falun Gong practitioners
were beaten and arrested in Tianjin because they went to a magazine's office to
talk to the editors about an article that contained false information about
Falun Gong. When other Tianjin practitioners visited the magazine's office to
ask them to release the arrested practitioners, they were told that they had to
appeal in Beijing. When I heard this, I thought I should go to the Office of
Appeals in Beijing and tell them my personal experience, so that they would know
what Falun Gong was really about. They would know that it was a mistake to
arrest the practitioners, and the situation would be rectified. That was why I
went to the Office of Appeals before 6 a.m. that morning. When I got there, a
lot of people were already there.

There were police at every intersection, as though they all came prepared.
Because a lot of people practiced Falun Gong in China at that time, a pretty
large number of practitioners came. The space in front of the Office of Appeals
was already full, and we moved to the sides. At first the police looked very
nervous. However, later they saw that Falun Gong practitioners were all
well-behaved, kept good order, did not block traffic at all, and followed police
orders. Everyone stood there quietly, waiting for the result of the
negotiations. Some people sat down after standing for a long time. There were no
radical actions or slogans. No one was shouting. The streets were very clean.
Even cigarette butts thrown away by the police were picked up by practitioners.
There was not a shred of paper left after the practitioners left. The police saw
how the practitioners behaved and were not concerned at all. They started
chatting with each other. I heard a passerby ask, "Why are so many people
here? What are they doing?" A policeman said, "They are all Falun Gong
practitioners. They came here to appeal. This practice is pretty good. My
mother-in-law practices this as well. They are all good people."

Several practitioners from my practice site also went. They were all like me:
having benefited from the practice, they wanted to explain the true situation.
That was why when government photographers started taking videos, the
practitioners acted peacefully and rationally and did not try to hide their
faces. After Premier Zhu Rongji met with the Falun Gong representatives and
reached a preliminary agreement, at about 9 p.m., we left after making sure that
the sidewalks were clean.

I remember that at that time the State Council Office and the Central
Administrative Office issued a joint notice, stating that the government was not
against people engaging in any kind of qigong practice. To our surprise, the
Falun Gong practitioners' peaceful actions incited great panic and jealousy in
Jiang Zemin. He mislabeled Falun Gong's appeal "besieging Zhongnanhai"
(the government compound). On July 20, 1999, he initiated a nationwide
persecution against Falun Gong.

The persecution intensified

Because I participated in the April 25th Appeal and refused to
give up practicing Falun Gong, I became a target after the persecution started
on July 20. Seeing that I had no other ways to appeal, I went to Tiananmen
Square in August 2000. Before I was able to say anything, I was taken to the
police station and detained for a day. Then I was handed over to my workplace's
management. They watched me all the time. The local police station and
residents' council also harassed me frequently. They tapped my phone and
followed me. At work, I was treated as an outcast. My workplace had a policy on
early retirement. Although I met the criteria for early retirement and applied
for it, my request was denied without a reason.

As a beneficiary of Falun Gong, I know that lies can only prevail
temporarily. However, the Chinese Communist Party's lies were beyond my
imagination. On January 23, 2001, the CCP orchestrated the "Tiananmen
Square self-immolations." I was shocked. That morning, as soon as I arrived
at work, my boss came to me and said, "This morning the whole area near
Tiananmen will be under marshal law, starting at 10 a.m.. You can't go anywhere
for a few days, especially Tiananmen." Soon, the
"self-immolations" happened. I knew exactly what happened. As everyone
saw later, in the video directed by the Chinese government-run TV station, there
were only very few people on Tiananmen Square besides the police, firefighters,
and the "self-immolators." Why were the self-immolators allowed in the
square when it was under marshal law? The video of the self-immolation was also
full of holes. This incident confirmed the CCP's evil nature and strengthened my
faith in Dafa. Around December 2001, Tang Lie, the CCP Secretary of my
workplace, and secretary Wang sent me to a "brainwashing session" held
at Xiaotangshan in a suburb of Beijing. I refused to follow their arrangement
and escaped. I had to stay away from my home and job for more than 2 weeks.

A few days later, a friend told me that my boss had gotten praise for
successfully "transforming" me. I was puzzled. After a little digging,
I found out that, after I fled the brainwashing center, Secretary Wang sent a
non-practitioner to the center and pretended it was me. Under Chinese Communist
Party rule, such fraud is quite commonplace.

I published a statement on the Clearwisdom website to reveal their deceptiion.
I stated that no one could pretend to be me. All of the actions done in my name
against Falun Gong were null and void.

The 610 Office also harassed my wife, forcing her to give up
cultivation by threatening to fire her from her job. They were also going to
take her to a brainwashing center to continue to persecute her.

In early 2002, with some friends' help, we left China for Russia quietly.

Shortly afterwards, my friends in China told me that we absolutely could not
return. Both of our places of employment had set up special committees to search
for us. At first the police waited in front of our apartment 24 hours a day and
harassed our friends and family members. Later, they went to my child's school
to look for him. Eventually, they went to the immigration bureau and found out
that we had gone to Russia. My friends warned me to be careful. Since we could
not return to China, we applied for asylum status in Russia. The police in
Russia did not know the facts about the persecution and tried to return us to
China. With help from the United Nations refugee organizations, we were able to
come to Sweden.